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“I’m sorry, Doctor, but you’re just not the man I fell in love with!” Sally Ann said, and there it should have ended. There is no accounting for taste: if she prefers overstuffed clowns with an inflated sense of self-importance and a ‘distinctive’ fashion sense, it’s a free universe. (Or it should be. The Doctor is very much in favour of a free universe.) There’s more than enough said overstuffed clowns in the universe, free or not, to last her a lifetime; his sixth incarnation was just one example. (Although, naturally, the best.)
It doesn’t end there.
“What’s wrong with this body?” the Doctor asks the TARDIS. He’s not brooding, not at all. Although this body does do brooding very well, what with his soulful blue eyes, his soft brown curls, his decidedly Byronic air. “I like this body. Romana liked this body.”
Ah.
***
“Here, gerroff!” Sally Ann exclaims, as the Doctor bundles her into the TARDIS. He’d been aiming to materialise around her, but such a minute miscalculation in the scale of everything is hardly a mistake at all. And if it is, easily rectified. “I was talking!”
Mephistopheles Arkadian, never one to miss an opportunity, finishes the drink he'd bought her.
***
The TARDIS materialises in the Presidential office on Gallifrey. Romana doesn’t look up from her work.
“Hello, Doctor.”
“Romana!”
“You’re a mentalist.” Romana does look up at the unfamiliar voice. “And you were such a lovely bloke.”
“Romana, this is Sally Ann, who was almost my best friend once. Sally Ann, this is Romana, one of my best friends ever. Romana’s the President of Gallifrey, which probably makes her the most powerful woman in the universe. Romana, tell her what you think of this body.”
Romana raises an eyebrow. “'Probably'?”
“All right, very probably. Please, Romana?”
Romana shrugs. “I like it. I do wish you wouldn’t rush through them at such a pace, though. And I don’t know why you expect her to listen to me; you never do.”
“Grace!” the Doctor exclaims. “Let’s go and meet Grace!”